That Silence (edited version)

That damned silence. It's cold, and it doesn't mind
that I used to be petrified of it, but I'm getting to where I actually love it, because there's cold, apathetic comfort in it, and I'm glad it loves me so much, and honestly,
Does it love you as much as me, and do you know the kind I mean?

It's. . .

the kind that greets me when I get home after work.
Everything is exactly as I'd left it, except it's different,
it's all around me, attempting to push me right back through door, it's a selfish and embittered bed mate, stealing my dreams, interrupting my slumber.

It follows me around the house, drowning out the kids and the phone. I feel it ready to pounce if I step outside of myself for even an instant. I have to play that damned radio in the truck so loud, and still, I hear that hateful silence.
I smile at my neighbors, and never forget to call back my friends. They've no idea I've taken up with the silence, and they're not proud, and I cannot help but think it's nothing new to me, and it doesn't change anything except another bowl of Fruit Loops, another episode of Mary Tyler Moore, and that heartless, rotten damned silence.

I wake upon waking, and look around the room that's all mine, ignoring the cackle of another laugh track, because I cannot bare the darkness, the memories that lurk in that unforgiving creeping darkness, and that insidious, contemptuous, resentful, mean silence.

And I think to myself that times will get better, I love being by myself. I don't have to share anything, or explain anything, or forgive anything. Sometimes I wish there was someone here with me, holding my shaking hand, sharing with me, laughing away the loneliness, baring the overwhelming weight of that damned, awful silence.

And yes, I'm one of the lucky ones. I have my girls. My sweet, lovely little girls with me. I answer their questions, explain that their Daddy loves them, but Mommy's still hurt. I take away the smiles and the love I get, proud to call them my girls.
They help me bare the brunt, even sing me a song, if the silence gets too loud. They'll hold my hand, hug my neck, bring me a nosegay of my favorite flowers from my garden.
They draw me pictures with me smiling at the beach, them playing in the sand, and thoroughly enjoying, for once in my life, that awful cleansing, stirring silence.